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Looking Upstream in Doping Cases
By CLAUDIO GATTI

The case against Lance Armstrong by antidoping officials detailed how Armstrong, as the leader of his professional cycling team, used performance-enhancing drugs over many years to fuel his run as a seven-time Tour de France champion. It detailed the lengths that many teammates, trainers, doctors and other associates went to enable him to pull off what was called the most sophisticated doping program in the sport’s history.

A prominent part of the cycling scene that received less attention, however, was the corporate sponsors that paid handsomely to hitch their brands to a global star.

No one has accused Armstrong’s sponsors of being directly involved with his doping program, and none of his sponsors are accused of having actual knowledge of his use of banned substances. But as Armstrong begins confessing to doping during his career — first in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that will be shown Thursday night — some critics have seized on another possible dynamic at play throughout sports: companies that endorse athletes might prefer to stand by quietly if they know an athlete is doping, appreciating the benefits of his success rather than moving to expose their pitchman.

“In recent years, the antidoping movement has recognized the need to look upstream of sophisticated dopers toward the traffickers and facilitators who form an integral component of doping networks,” said Dr. Michael Ashenden, an adviser to the World Anti-Doping Agency and the director of the research organization, Science and Industry Against Blood Doping. “My opinion is that networks should be seen to comprise not just those who directly aid and abet dopers, but also those support staff, agents and sponsors who choose to turn a blind eye rather than undertake due diligence. Those passive actors become part of the problem because athletes quickly assess the boundaries and subsequently know what they can expect to get away with.”

The release of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s report on Armstrong compelled Nike, Anheuser-Busch, Trek Bicycle Corporation and other sponsors to sever their association with him. The United States Postal Service, which ended its role as Armstrong’s chief team sponsor in 2004, said in an e-mail that it was aware of the doping accusations against Armstrong and other riders, but had no further comment.

“Maybe U.S. Postal didn’t know about doping, or maybe they didn’t want to know, but you would have to keep your head in the sand not to know,” said Tyler Hamilton, a former member of Armstrong’s inner circle who described parts of the team’s doping program in the book “The Secret Race.”

One of Armstrong’s lawyers, Tim Herman, cited a study commissioned by the Postal Service that showed it spent $32.27 million on Armstrong’s team from 2001 to 2004 and in return received marketing benefits of $103.63 million.

According to Herman, anyone who receives a 320 percent return on investment in four years has no reason to complain. But Armstrong is seeking to repay several millions of dollars to the Postal Service as part of his cooperation as a witness in a federal whistle-blower case, according to someone with knowledge of the matter.

“Each new doping scandal follows the same pattern,” Jörg Jaksche, a former pro cyclist from Germany, said in a telephone interview. “When someone is caught, the system acts shocked and upset, declares its absolute rejection of doping and depicts the athlete as a black sheep that deserves to be slaughtered. After that, everything continues like before. But the fact is that they slaughter a scapegoat, not a black sheep, and nobody ever looks at the shepherd’s responsibility. I’m talking about those in the higher levels, those who govern the sports and, most importantly, those who provide the money that fuels everything.

“For the sponsors, this system has no downside. If nobody is caught doping, they gain all the commercial benefits of the visibility generated by great performances. If somebody is caught, they have a swift exit strategy — they declare their disappointment and receive the extra benefit of the good publicity gained for being righteous. It’s the win-win situation. That’s why nothing ever changed.”

Jaksche, 36, is among the riders trying to break the wall of silence, known as omertà, that has long muffled any discussion of doping in cycling. He is studying economics at the University of Innsbruck, in Austria, and said his education helped him understand what he experienced as a cyclist.

“Corporate sponsors, like all companies, are looking for high return on investment,” he said. “In sports, winning provides that return, and doping increases the chances of winning. So the message that, directly or indirectly, sponsors give athletes is simple: we want you to win, and in order to do that you can do whatever you want. As long as you don’t get caught.”

Jaksche’s cycling team was sponsored by Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile. In 1997, the team’s lead rider, Jan Ullrich, became the first German to win the Tour de France. Less than two years later, in June 1999, the weekly magazine Der Spiegel published an article suggesting Ullrich and his team had engaged in systematic doping.

“We had just finished the Tour of Germany and were driving to Switzerland for the Swiss Tour when the article hit the newsstands,” Jaksche said. “I was in a car with Ullrich and the press officer that Telekom assigned to us, and I remember him telling us how to handle the press. They did not want to find out if Der Spiegel’s accusations were true or false. They never made any attempt to verify the allegations. In fact, they must have assumed they were right, because the only countermeasure they took was to make sure that none of us would say anything compromising.

“It was omertà all the way. The reason? With Ullrich’s success in the Tour, a relatively small amount of money had produced a huge marketing return. For them, it was an extraordinarily successful business model and they didn’t want to change it or, worse, ruin it.”

Jaksche testified to the German authorities that doping was team policy. Riders who wanted the banned blood-booster EPO, steroids or growth hormones could ask the team doctors. According to the cyclist’s sworn testimony, the team manager, Walter Godefroot, was aware of this. Nobody asked Jaksche if the sponsor knew that doping was systematic, but a prosecutor in Bavaria opened an investigation against him for suspected fraud. In his report, the prosecutor withdrew the charge, stating that all the parties involved — the team and the sponsor — must have known about doping, so there could not have been any fraud.

In a statement, Deutsche Telekom said: “As a sports sponsor, Deutsche Telekom fundamentally disapproves of any type of doping. Therefore, in 2007, we decided to discontinue our involvement in cycling, as we, as a sponsor, had to realize that cycling was unable to come to terms with the doping issue. Deutsche Telekom, as a sponsor, was at no time informed about any doping activities.”

Although a special independent committee that investigated the matter was unable to determine whether the top executives of Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile knew about doping in the team, the committee’s report criticized the company.

“What interested the sponsor in the first place was not a doping-free sport,” the report said. The contract was terminated, it said, “only when it stopped enhancing the corporate image.”

“When the two leading riders, Jan Ullrich and Óscar Sevilla, along with Ullrich’s carer Rudy Pevenage, were suspended, the limit had not yet been reached. When Sergie Honchar was suspended on 11 May 2007 and Patrik Sinkewitz’s blood test was found positive on 8 June 2007, nothing happened. It was not until 27 November 2007 that Deutsche Telekom announced that its executive board was terminating its sponsorship arrangement. Deutsche Telekom, which had been involved in professional cycling since 1991, had decided to put its money elsewhere.”

A July 2008 report on the Ullrich affair by the B.K.A., the equivalent of the F.B.I. in Germany, concluded that “it can be assumed” that T-Mobile was informed of doping within the team.

The antidoping officials’ case against Armstrong, published in October, included statements from several cyclists who admitted taking banned substances. The testimony of the American Levi Leipheimer, the bronze medalist in the 2008 Olympics, was among them. He admitted to using EPO since 1999, when he rode with the Saturn team, but also described the following years with the team sponsored by the Dutch banking group Rabobank.

“I continued to use EPO while with Rabobank in 2002, 2003 and 2004, and was also assisted in using it by the Rabobank team doctor, from whom I purchased EPO,” Leipheimer said. “During my time at Rabobank, I was aware that [another] rider was using EPO, and on several occasions, we discussed his EPO use.”

A few days after that affidavit was made public by Usada, Rabobank announced that it was withdrawing from cycling because it “was no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport.”

But for years, riders on the cycling team sponsored by Rabobank were linked to doping.

The former team director Theo de Rooij recently told a Dutch newspaper that while he was there, riders were allowed to arrange for their own medical care and it was their responsibility to determine “how far they wanted to go.” In the years that de Rooij managed the team, the Rabobank riders Thomas Dekker, Denis Menchov, Michael Boogerd and Michael Rasmussen were named in connection to doping investigations. They all denied taking any illegal substances.

Rabobank has said that things changed with the departure of de Rooij in the summer of 2007. But soon after he left, Dekker was found to have abnormal blood values, and in 2010 Menchov was caught talking to his manager about the need to have his teammates treated by a notorious doping expert. In December 2012, the international cycling union opened a doping case against Carlos Barredo, accusing him of having used performance-enhancing drugs.

“In my entire career, I never had a sponsor asking me any question about doping,” Jaksche said. “They are only good at covering their back, for example through contracts with built-in deniability.”

Rabobank cyclists were asked to sign a contract said that included a confidentiality clause pertaining to doping. It said that the rider “will not at present nor in the future make any disclosure to third parties except with the explicit permission of the employer about any matter directly or indirectly tied to ... the alleged use of banned substances.”

The contract clause, Rabobank said in a statement Monday, “is a standard clause, which is intended to prevent leakage of company secrets.”

“Rabobank Cycling Teams (now called Blanco Procycling Team) relieve employees from this confidentiality clause with respect to statements to research bodies on doping.”


Claudio Gatti is an investigative reporter for Il Sole 24 Ore, a daily business newspaper in Italy. He is based in New York. This article is being published by The Times and Il Sole 24 Ore.


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/sports/cycling/critics-take-a-look-upstream-in-doping-scandals.html?ref=sports&pagewanted=print